Nominated this year for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, you can now find this on Paramount Plus with audio description. the film is not originally in the English language, so I would recommend not skipping the accessibility if you are blind or visually impaired. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but the Documentary branch frequently chooses documentaries no one watches or cares about over documentaries widely accepted by the public. Every once in a while you get a Summer Of Soul, but most well known documentaries fail to even get nominated. Last year, Moon Age Daydream missed out on the nomination, despite a loud reception,and critical darling Good Night Oppi failed to even make the shortlist. Famously, in recent years, Won’t You be My Neighbor missed out on the nomination as well.
So, instead of the more socially relevant documentaries like Lakota Nation Vs United States, or Stamped From The Beginning, or the deeply personal Still: A Michael J Fox Story, this year they went with the Alzheimer’s documentary. Essentially, this captures over time the fading memory of one half of a married couple, and how that relates to their relationship.
It feels like a home video, and there’s nothing really wrong with it. It just was a very strong year for documentaries, and while I’m sure this has fans, it just didn’t do a lot for me. I would have much preferred nominations for my aforementioned documentaries, and I’m sure a lot of people wanted to see Beyond Utopia make the cut. Will this win? Maybe. It’s one of the more higher profile entries in a weak year, though 20 Days In Mariupol really feels like it has to win.
The documentary is very home video in style, so the audio description has a lot to do. Honestly, considering the fact that this is also a foreign language film, the fact that it has audio description is just a rarity in itself, let alone a documentary. Fellow nominee Four Daughters has no known audio description, and fits the same mold.
Final Grade: B
